Lakers end the month with a tough 5 game road trip. San Antonio Spurs are first to act. Oklahoma City, Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta are looming behind. L.A. has now won 6 straight and hope to culminate a better road trip than their disappointing 0-3 travels earlier this month.

Spurs Lineup

Spurs are still strong without their star PG Tony Parker. They are just 3.5 games back from Dallas for the Southwest top spot. Although Tim Duncan is having low career averages he always plays well against the Lakers. I think he still holds a grudge with D Fish since 0.4. He's averaging 21 pts & 14 rebs in the season series. Manu is on a scoring frenzy having scored 82 points in his last 3 games. George Hill in place of Tony Parker (broken right ring finger) is playing well. He had a season high 27 points his last game and plans to take advantage of L.A.'s PG match up. Richard Jefferson is too inconsistent to really predict how well he'll play tomorrow so I guess we'll wait to see how he does.

Lakers Lineup

Since Bynum is out with a strained left Achilles' tendon, PJ two finger whistled LO back in as a starter which puts Artest at the SF position. This means Richard Jefferson will hopefully have another inconsistent night trying to fend off Artest's blistering D. Gasol was named the Western Conference player of the week and needless to say has been playing well. Pau will most likely be matched up against Duncan at the Center position. These two will definitely battle it out. Tomorrow night will be yet another monumental night for Mr. 24 (25,612) as he's just one point shy of Alex English (25,613) for 12th place as the NBA's all-time scorer. I think Kobe will score more than the one point needed for this new accolade. Lamar is once again a starter and will make his presence felt by using his lengthy arms to crash the boards. His height is needed to patch up Bynum's hole.

On paper, Lakers are the better team and on map, a lake is much larger than a river walk. Either way, look for Kobe and the Lakers to use this nationally televised San Antonio stage to showcase true championship caliber basketball. Who knows, Kobe might just have game winner #7.